Feints & Pot Stills

[rtalbigr]

You can use feints in a pot still in various ways, from making a product similar to your original, to a “mock” neutral. I am using the term feints to include both heads and tails.

If you have enough feints that you have collected from say a single type of mash, (UJSSM, all bran, sweetfeed, etc) an all feints run will give you a product that will be “similar” to the original. However, you have to consider that what you have collected is a lot of off-products that have been deemed undesirable. They have been separated from the hearts as either head or tails. They still contain adequate amounts of alcohol and enough good compounds (esters, some of the fusil alcohols, etc) to make an excellent product. In some respects these compounds have been concentrated so often you will get a stronger flavor profile. In my experience, you need to be more sever with your cuts because of this concentration.

To my way of thinking a more practical use of feints is to combine them with your wash when doing a stripping run. It is an effective use of the feints, you don’t get the concentration of the undesirable compounds and you are also getting the benefit of the desired compounds.

If you distill as I do you are going to end up with a number of disparate feints. Right now I have feints from all barley, wheat, some rum, peach brandy and will have some from corn. Now, I could combine all in an all feints run just to see what I might get, but my usual course is to make a “mock” neutral, or vodka. I have done this several times and ended up with a very nice product that can be used as a drink or as the base for cordials and liqueurs.

The concept is based on the ability of water to “clean” up the feints as opposed to reflux in fractionating columns. By diluting the feints to 30-40%, stripping, diluting, and stripping it is possible to get a nice clean product. This is going to take 3-4 cycles through your pot still, maybe more. While this can be subjective, and you could use taste as your guide, I have found that an easy indicator is what left in you pot after a run, that is how cloudy/milky white it is. You put a clear liquid in you pot, you get a clear liquid through your condenser, but what you have left in the pot is cloudy and milky white. With each subsequent run the cloudiness will dissipate, so I will dilute and rerun until the cloudiness is substantially reduced. On the final run I’ll make my cuts; any feints left I toss. All previous runs are done as stripping runs.

As a note, with the first two runs I’ll toss a pretty health cut for fores, generally 600-700 ml each. While my feints are predominately tails, there is a significant portion of heads.

Big R

[Prairiepiss]

Very good info Big R. I think it can be put to some good use by the new distillers. Me included I will actually be doing this probably next weekends. I thought I mite do it this weekend. But I think I will run short on time after last nights All Bran run and running my palm sugar today and letting it air out. So I will plan to just make a weekend of it.

[Bull Rider]

Nice read Big R:

I've been considering not saving all of the heads from UJSM spirit runs. I toss out some of the fores hots from both the strip run and the spirit runs. When I break out my spirit run into small jars for blending I let them sit and air out for a day or so.

I'm considering if the beginning portion of the heads that I've collected should be tossed, rather than saved as feints.

In the past I've used the saved up feints to top off the boiler charge on spirit runs with no set amount. Sometimes I would use two or three gallons of feints, sometimes none. I'm going to start adding a prescribed amount as part of the routine.


Bull.

[rtalbigr]

Bull - Some people save heads some don't. When I'm gonna run feints with my strips I'm figuring I'll be getting some flavors from the heads, but there are some baddies in there so I increase the amout of fores I toss when I do my spirit runs. I can see the benefits both ways.

Big R

[Glock19Fan]

I do a similar procedure as yours, but IMO adding feints to the next run is just wasting time and doesnt really help the outcome. Or at least in my experience with my still. From my experience, the flavor increases slightly, but the overall alcohol output is disappointing considering how much feints were added. With feints added, tails seem to start coming in around the same time, or just a little bit after as compared to a normal run. I have found that doing all feint runs, dilluted to 30% or so, results in fairly impressive yeilds. I only single distill my normal spirits, but I think that my way of doing a feints run is much like other distillers practice of strip and spirit runs.

Another practice I have successfully done is using the spirits collected during the feints run as a flavored spirit. Peach, cherry, blueberry, watermelon, as well as apple pie are generally made from "double distilled" feints. Using flavors in your feints run not only covered up any possible off flavors, but it also allows you to keep your prized hearts for straight sipping.

[demetroy]

hey just got a question about storing feints would storing in old worn out fermentors while i wait until i collect enough to fill my boiler and make some base out of it (i use essence for everything but whisky for now) would this be fine im just worried about storing in the plastic but on the other hand it will be sitting from 18% to 30% so its not that strong and ill be distilling around 2 more times as i use a pot still

[rtalbigr]

I wouldn't advise storing feints in anything plastic, even though it is only 18-30%; glass or SS would be the only acceptable containers. I use old likker bottles or glass gallon jugs. The likker bottles are free and the gallon jugs pretty cheap.

Big R

[demetroy]

I wouldn't advise storing feints in anything plastic, even though it is only 18-30%; glass or SS would be the only acceptable containers. I use old likker bottles or glass gallon jugs. The likker bottles are free and the gallon jugs pretty cheap.

Big R

thanks i think ill head to the scrap yard get me some more kegs lol

[jeepkidd]

What do you guys do with the heads and tails from an all feints run? I know if I keep running them, I won't turn them into good likker, but I also feel like pouring them down the drain is a waste.

[rtalbigr]

What do you guys do with the heads and tails from an all feints run? I know if I keep running them, I won't turn them into good likker, but I also feel like pouring them down the drain is a waste.

Mine go down the sink drain.

Big R

[rad14701]

I have such small amounts that I continue to recycle my feints, tossing the foreshots into my fores/fuel jar... There's always some good alcohol to wring out in the next run... I'm sure my foreshots jar contains some early nasty heads as well...

[Bushman]

There have been posts on other uses on how to use heads. I found a recipe on line for mixing in with some soap to use as a windshield wiper cleaner (haven't tried it). I a have used some for cleaning shop equipment and I saved some when I built my new still for a low wines cleaning. Mostly I use it in both methods mentioned above on rerunning it.

[jeepkidd]

I have mixed my fores and used for washing windows and windshield washer fluid, nice streak free clean. I have more heads than I can use for that though, and I think the oils in the tails would make a mess on the windows.

How high % do the heads have to be to burn them in my jeep? I'd be up for mixing 1l or so with a 70l tank of gas if it will not cause problems.

[Dnderhead]

"How high % do the heads have to be to burn them in my jeep?"
alcohol will not mix with gasoline unless it is 98%? and this is not possible with a ordinary still.

[jeepkidd]

okay, I'll strike that one then. Does it make a good weed killer maybe? There's got to be some good use for this stuff.

[Angel_Kefka]

also, if a vehicle isn't designed for alcohol fuel, it will eat through some of the synthetic fuel lines and stuff.

[Beerbrewer]

I generally keep the heads from a first run and carry them over to a second run of something similar and then dump them (thinking behind this is that heads will start to get stronger the more you reuse them). My feints jar contains only tails. I will usually carry over the tails from an all feints run to start the next one.

Not sure if this is that effective and I may change my approach but it works for me.

Really interesting reading how other people approach this though.

[dallen54200]

Fores clean the pitch from table saw blades real well